"YOURS
IN TRUTH":
A LETTER SHOWING JOHN BROWN’S EARLY INTEREST
IN AIDING THE ABOLITIONIST CAUSE
JOHN BROWN. Autograph Letter Signed to Joshua
R. Giddings, Springfield, MA, 7 September 1848. 1 page, 10" x 8".
In the 1850's, John Brown would achieve fame for his role in the guerilla
warfare between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces in "Bleeding
Kansas" and then for his raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, launched
in hopes of inciting a large-scale slave insurrection in the South.
In 1848, the date of this letter, Brown was a wool merchant, operating
a commission house in Springfield, Massachusetts, but he was already
an abolitionist, as this letter to Ohio Congressman Joshua Giddings
indicates. First elected to the House in 1838, Giddings was well-known
for his anti-slavery convictions, which became firmer over the years
and which would lead him from the Whig to the Free Soil and then to
the Republican Party.
"I have by no means given [up] the measure I proposed to you
at Springfield," Brown informs Giddings, "but ill
health prevented my going to Washington to see you as I intended. Please
say to me at what time or times I may find you at home, or at any other
points nearer to this place. I wrote you by Telegraph at Washington
after I recovered, but it seems that you had then left." He
has signed, "Verry Respectfully Yours John Brown,"
and in a postscript adds, "Please direct to Care of Perkins
& Brown as before. Yours in truth JB."
The "measure" Brown mentions was almost certainly
his plan for a wool exhibit sponsored by abolitionists which he hoped
would help bring attention and respectability to their cause. Brown
had written Giddings about this idea earlier in the year, offering to
put up $1000 in prize money. He had asked Giddings to oversee the enterprise
but to keep the whole matter secret until he could get to Washington
to consult him about it. The letter here shows that Brown was still
interested in the scheme that fall, although ultimately, nothing came
of his proposal, in part because of his lack of funds. See Stephen B.
Oates, To Purge This Land With Blood: A Biography of John Brown,
2d edition (1984), esp. pp. 52, 58-59.
The letter has some light browning, but is darkly-penned and very clear.
It has been professionally deacidified, and is in very good condition.
A
fine association of two important anti-slavery crusaders, and on a proposal
to aid their cause. $7000.00
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